I loved Pillars of Earth to the point, I actually read the book and while not as cinematic as the film especially the end, it was very good. I also got World without End and never got to read it. After seeing the part one, I can see why that may not have been a bad idea. Its 100 years later and the priory at Kingsbridge as last we saw at the end of Pillars ie the giant church and city is where we start. A lot of themes are the same as the first one ie the end of a civil war in England. To start off, King Edward II is defeated by his wife from France and his son, Edward III. In a weird way, Braveheart would the bridge movie to this series. It makes it even weirder where we are supposed to feel bad for the feminine king who was killed by a knight and the Queen's new boyfriend. On top of wanting to see the Queen, Mel's love interest, turn out to be a giant vengeful bitch, die. Its completely fucked up in a lot of ways.
Other things that stay the same, we get a red haired boy who is good at building in love with a black haired girl who makes wool. The priory is still a source of good and bad. The good being Miranda Richardson as the head nun who seems to see lot of problems with the janitor from Harry Potter bleeding people and cutting arms off. We also get another black haired witch woman who teaches the young wool girl. Sadly, the priory has men who view this as bad including wool girl's monk cousin who is going to be the young Ian McShane evil priest just with a worse mom.
Red haired boy, Martin, was one of two sons who were the heirs to Shivering Castle which was one of the major plot points of last time and same fate falls on the boys had it did on the previous owners. His father is executed and his brother joins the new rulers while he becomes an apprentice who like Tom Builder makes models. Before this, his brother and him help save the knight who killed the king. The knight loses his arm thanks Harry's janitor, but saved by the witch. He blackmails the Queen in letting him become a monk. Edward III finds out and kills the Queen's boy toy. Now, the Queen is pissed and demands taxes on Kingsbridge. Back to Martin, he warns that Kingsbridge's bridge is old and can't handle traffic. And in the most dramatic moment of this episode, the town decides to hang the witch, but in doing so makes the bridge collapse where the knot is. The new ruler of the castle is dead. New young Ian McShane's mom kills the guy who is ahead of him at the priory and for all intensive purposes without the bridge, the town is pretty fucked.
A better title maybe Rape without End. There is no joke, four rapes. One actually rape done to wool girl by her bully builder husband then she is molested by the young monk a scene later. A poor girl is attacked by her father twice, she is saved by her brother and then cuts her father the next time. That is a lot not including the so-called Witch hunter molesting the witch in front of everyone to find a third nipple to prove she is a witch. I don't expect this nonsense to end either as previews show young monk choking the life out of wool girl.
I turned to my wife and asked do you think we will care about these characters as much as the Pillars cast. Her response was no. A lot of what made Pillars good was you got to know the characters and you got attached to them. The other thing is they were fresh and new. These characters seem to be exact copies that are either de-aged or made from other characters or completely the same. I will continue to watch, but after reading Fossellet's Century Trilogy, you can see the cycle of new characters that are not really new.
(edited by lotjx on 21.10.12 1403) The Wee Baby Sheamus.Twitter: @realjoecarfley its a bit more toned down there. A bit.
Rather than try to translate your review into English, I'll just add some background.
This is a miniseries airing on Reelz in the US. I believe episodes 1 & 2 aired last Wednesday (and were rerun several times) as the "premiere." The entire series of eight episodes has already wrapped up on Showcase in Canada. Everyone on IMDb seems to hate how it deviated from the source material. I'm sure I'll never watch this nor read the book, so I have no dog in this fight. The end.
I heard about this, was interested, and then promptly forgot all about it.
I loved the Pillars of the Earth miniseries that aired on HBO in 2010. Amazing cast: Matthew MacFadyen, Ian McShane, Haley Atwell, Rufus Sewell, etc. I enjoyed the book as well. But I never got around to reading World Without End (those books are huge and time consuming, and Game of Thrones took up most of my 2011 genre reading). Sad to hear the World Without End miniseries isn't up to snuff, but the step down from HBO to Reelz is a big indicator of (lack of) quality.
@CMPunk
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